Catch Me
by CelestialLoverxxx
Summary: "Hey Natsu!" she called. He eyed her warily. "Yes, Lucy?" She smiled and tilted her face up to the night sky. The wind whipped her blonde hair. "Catch me." And she fell.


**Here's some for love for NatsuxLucy! It turned out a bit long but I worked hard on it and I really hope you guys will like it too! :) Please tell me your thoughts on it! :)**

 **Dedicated to lucyglitter11, because she's my rock and my partner in cookie crime.**

* * *

 **Catch Me**

* * *

Natsu Dragneel was lying on his back, staring out of the window. It was two AM in the morning and he was on his bed with his sneakers still on. The party that he had escaped from an hour ago had left him annoyed and his head a bit fuzzy, but he couldn't sleep.

He knew the reason for _that_. He was thinking of a blonde devil. Just like every other night he had his eyes wide open in the darkness.

Everything was still. Peaceful. His parents were a corridor away but they'd never been people to stay up late.

And suddenly, Natsu's phone rang out loud and clear, breaking the silence.

He looked sideways, cursing himself for not putting his phone on vibrator. By the time he grabbed it off the bedside table, it was on its dying ring. And in the second that it took for him to see the name on his screen and shoot up straight in bed, the phone fell shut.

A photograph of a girl with long blonde hair and a mischievous smile stared up at him. His breath caught in his throat. _She_ was calling _him_ , at this time? He vaguely remembered seeing her at the party, and worried that they were in trouble for all the chaos his high school buddies were making, he hesitantly started to press the redial option.

Before he could do that, a message popped up. From Lucy Heartfilia.

Heart pounding away for no real reason, he read her text hurriedly.

 _Pick up your phone, idiot._

Frowning slightly, he proceeded to reply, but another message came in before that. Smartly, he cut off the sound by finally silencing his phone.

 _I know you're awake._

Natsu felt his heart threatening to burst out of his chest. All night at that ridiculous graduation party he'd been trying to steal glances at Lucy. But he'd been thrown into the pool before that, forced a cup of alcohol and whisked away by the rest of his school football team to have a double celebration for their last victory and the snagging of the final cup.

And now, she was texting him in the middle of the night and he was bewildered to an extent of not having a proper response.

Slowly, he typed back. _Is everything okay?_

Feeling like he was a fourteen year old boy who just hit puberty again, he nervously fiddled with his phone and waited for a response. Who cared? He thought. He'd given up trying to _not_ fall in love with Lucy Heartfilia the day she winked at him and tossed him a muddy football on the rainy school stadium. "You game?"

Since then, the name _Lucy_ never sounded the same to him again.

Now he stared fixatedly at the screen, waiting for her response. It came a second before he heard a sharp rap on his window.

 _Everything's brilliant. Open the window, will you?_

He always knew how crazy Lucy had been. She'd flashed a light from her roof into his room once, just to ask him the correct spelling of _grandiloquence,_ and hit him with a Russian dictionary when he couldn't answer. She would do and say whatever she pleased, but somehow, she always did it the right way. She kept better company that Natsu himself could admit to have.

But as he scrambled off the bed, kicked aside the mess of clothes on his floor and went to the window, he couldn't help but feel that something very weird was going to happen.

He opened his window tentatively, wondering if this was another prank. But a small hand reaching up to him immediately told him it wasn't. Without thinking, he took it and hauled Lucy up.

She had her phone in her mouth as she let go of him and crawled into his room through the window. Natsu stepped back, startled.

As she dropped to the floor and released her phone, she looked at Natsu and didn't offer a smile.

They both stared at each other for a second. Then:

"Do you have a bathroom in here?" She asked.

Despite that rather unromantic line—he _had_ deluded himself in the span of five minutes that she'd climbed up here to tell him that she was madly in love with him—Natsu couldn't resist the pleasurable thrill that went down his spine on hearing her voice.

"Um, yes. Of course."

Lucy got up. "Perfect. I really need to fix my hair."

And he moved aside to let her enter the bathroom opposite, and shut the door loudly behind her.

Natsu stood there for a second, and then with inhuman speed dived down and pushed all his dirty clothes under the bed, stuffed his books and note sheets into his already cluttered desk, threw his deflated football and a week old empty KFC box into his wardrobe, and was calmly seated on his bed by the time Lucy walked out.

She looked around a second before turning to Natsu. "You tidy fast." He flushed from embarrassment, about to offer an explanation involving the fact that he always cleaned up his room at two AM. Again, she beat him to the punch.

"Hey Natsu."

Confused, he cleared his throat and said, "Hey Lucy." He wanted to ask her what she was doing here, and why she wasn't still partying hard, or why she had texted _him_ of all people, but the words died in his throat.

Finally, she smiled at him. But it looked all too familiar. "Do you think you'd like to spend a night with me?" Oh. That was the infamous grin of Lucy's.

Feeling extremely off track, Natsu gaped at her. "W-what? What?" And prided himself for his smart comebacks.

Lucy sighed. She had a long coat covering the backless black dress she'd been wearing at the party, and even with that on, she looked breathtaking. "Let's go somewhere," she clarified. "Don't get any ideas."

There was something about her, Natsu realized. She looked—a little _too_ flushed, excited.

"Lucy," he started slowly. "Are you sure you—well you didn't drink too much at that party, did you?"

Lucy Heartfilia smirked, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, and dragged them both towards the open window.

"I'll climb down first," she whispered. "Then you can follow me. Don't wake the neighbors."

As her blonde head disappeared below the sill, Natsu didn't think twice about swinging his own long legs over it and wedging his lower body down.

After all, he thought, he'd follow her to the ends of the world. Him climbing down the side of a house at two in the morning despite having acrophobia since he was seven was a cakewalk.

* * *

As Lucy and Natsu crossed their dark lawn, he couldn't help but feel that in situations like these, it was usually the guy who led the girl through the darkness and showed her the time of her life.

Unfortunately, Natsu had never been much of an adventurer and he was glad to take Lucy's lead.

He realized, as they stepped out onto the deserted streets, that he'd never _really_ been alone with her long enough to talk to her properly. Sure, she lived a house away from him, but he'd always just been a silent admirer of her wacked up life she lived just fine.

"So, can I ask?" he started conversationally, glancing at her. Her beautiful brown eyes were looking straight ahead, but now they shifted to glared at him.

"You _can_ ," she started, but Natsu hastily interrupted. "I mean, _may_ I ask?" He'd never got over Lucy's obsession with grammar. Another one of those tiny things he found wonderful about her.

"Yes." Lucy looked mollified. "Ask what, exactly?"

"What are we doing?" He felt stupid at his question. "I mean, you just randomly showed up. Why aren't you at the party?"

"Gosh, Natsu, if you want me to go away that much, you could just say so." Lucy shrugged at him.

"What? No!" Natsu swerved as he spoke, to avoid a car racing towards them out of nowhere, with people from their own school cheering and spraying beer everywhere.

"Dragneeeeeel!" They hooted as they passed. One of the boys chucked a beer cap at him. "You and Lushee? You tapping that butt yet, eh?"

Natsu didn't reply as they sped off, but felt like he'd pool onto the street in a distressed mess from mortification. Lucy, however, looked mildly amused.

"Behold," Natsu muttered, as they continued to walk. "Our school."

Lucy gave him a small smile. "We'll be out of here by next week," she said. She pushed her hands in her coat pockets, looking down. "Then we won't really see each other again."

And Natsu knew that she wasn't talking about _we_ as in the big happy family of their senior year, but _we_ as in him and her.

He wasn't stupid. He'd caught the glances she stole at him once in a while, and had noticed how he was the first one she came to whenever she was planning another massive prank on the games teacher. But he'd never got his hopes up, telling himself that he just wanted to believe that she liked him like he did her. After all, a girl like Lucy wouldn't hang around with a silent opposite of her.

Now, he wasn't so sure.

"Where will you be going?" he asked her. "For college?"

"One question at a time." Lucy tottered a little as she walked along the deserted road of Magnolia, and Natsu almost reached out a hand to catch her. She was definitely drunk, but not enough to think or speak incoherently, despite the fact that her voice seemed heightened with emotion.

"To answer the first one," she said. "I snuck out of the party when they started handing out marijuana."

Natsu stopped dead in his tracks, shocked. " _What_?!"

Lucy laughed and the sound was lovely. "I'm just pulling your leg," she said. She paused to hiccup a small, cute hiccup, and then said, "It was actually when the student council president drowned. I figured I wouldn't want to stick around till the police came."

Unsure of whether to be exasperated or to start laughing, Natsu rolled my eyes and bumped her shoulder casually. Only inside his stomach, it wasn't _casual_. It was a freaking army of butterflies in there, all raging from a _shoulder bump_.

"Stop that."

"Sorry."

Natsu looked at her. "You don't have to apologize."

"It's manners."

"You don't need to have manners around me."

At a potential license to be as weird around as him as she wanted to being handed to her, she threw him one last fleeting, half-drunk and half-affectionate look, and turned her eyes back to the street. Magnolia was asleep and dark, but the almost high girl in front of Natsu sure wasn't.

"Well, sadly," Lucy said, and though it could have been his imagination, she seemed to shift closer to him. Natsu briefly panicked at the thought of not having _any_ cologne on. Or a clean shirt to be honest. Crap. "You still need to have correct grammar around me."

"Whatever you wants," he said, just to watch her reaction. She rolled her eyes, and broke out in a reluctant laugh.

Natsu finally looked up to see where we were actually going and noticed the road Lucy was taking led to the large amusement part in the heart of Magnolia. During normal people hours, it was brightly lit up and marvelous, but as they approached it, it was dark and eerie.

"Uh," he began. "Lucy. Please tell me if you've dragged me here to kill me. Then at least I'll have a head start."

She looked amused. "You _do_ have a sense of humour."

"I try," Natsu said drily. He shivered a bit in the chilly air and looked up at the tall, locked gates. He cast a sidelong glance at the girl beside him to see the bright look in her eyes and felt some of the nagging doubts in his head fade away into sudden excitement.

It only increased, with a pinch of apprehension, when Lucy turned to him and said, "Now we break in."

Natsu gaped at her. "I'm sorry?"

Lucy crossed her arms. "It isn't that hard," she chided. "All we have to do is climb over the gates, fall on the other side, and try not to break a leg."

Rapidly feeling all that excitement burn out, Natsu shook his head violently. "No! Let's just—er, stand her and talk about the universe. That's cool too."

In the next second, as Lucy gave him an exasperated drunken smile and walked up to him, he almost thought it was going to happen. She was going to kiss him. Maybe she liked his 'Let's be responsible and follow the rules' attitude after all.

Natsu stood very still, pulse quickening, eyes straying to her beautiful lips. There was no one here, they were all alone, she could just—

"Give me lift." Lucy placed a hand on his shoulder, snapping him out of his reverie.

"Huh?"

"A lift up," The blonde said impatiently. Natsu swore mentally. Of _course_ she wouldn't kiss him. She probably had a boyfriend with tattoos on his genitals he didn't know about, who was just as crazy and _cool_ as she was. Heck, he hadn't even _fouled_ in one of his matches. Breaking into an amusement park was the least cool thing he'd probably ever do.

And as he looked at Lucy and realized he'd probably never see her walking around the school corridors with a paintball weapon in her hands again, he decided that it was now or never.

One lift up. One break in. One chance for him to tell her how he felt.

So he nodded, gulped and placed both his hands in front of her. Lucy placed one boot on it, her heel piercing his skin. Then she turned and placed one perfect leg over the gates and then the other.

Natsu had his hands up, ready to help her if she needed it. But Lucy jumped down expertly on the other side and grinned at him. "Your turn."

He hesitated, and Lucy got up, seeing it. She stared at him and then it was Natsu, Lucy and a locked gate between them.

"If you want to," she said.

Natsu looked down at her heel marks on his fingers. Then he jumped and caught a grill, swinging his legs over the gate. He fell a lot more clumsily than she did, but he caught the satisfied smile on her face.

They walked with Lucy in the lead, in complete and utterly comfortable silence. They weren't discussing leaving or colleges or stupid parties anymore. Natsu didn't know whether she felt it too, but to him, just the two of them in the middle of a dark, deserted amusement park was something that seemed oddly cut off from the rest of Magnolia. Something precious.

When Lucy stopped, he almost bumped into her. He caught a whiff of her perfume as he did and stepped back a little too fast, blushing.

"What are we—?"

He froze when he looked up and saw the gigantic Ferris Wheel. It was the pride of Magnolia's amusement park. And he, as a proud acrophobic, had never set foot in one of those deathly carts.

Lucy ignored him and pranced forward to the control booth near the ride. "I worked here a month last summer," she called back. Natsu, realizing what she was trying to do that night, started to break out in cold sweat.

Screw being adventurous. He _so_ was not going to go into that death trap. Or on. Prepositions; they might matter to the girl he was in love with, but they sure as hell didn't matter to him when he was seconds away from a possible gruesome death.

Before he could speak up, the Ferris lit up before his eyes. Lucy was fiddling with the controls, and once the ride had its amber and orange lights up, she pushed another lever and stepped back. The wheel started to creak and start moving.

"Lucy," Natsu started weakly. "Lucy, I didn't—you really need some sleep. I don't think we should be doing this."

Lucy gave him a look. "Natsu—"

More worried for a drunken Lucy dying than he himself, Natsu walked towards her and shook his head firmly. "No. I'm not riding that, and no matter how _cool_ it may be Luce, you're not either. You need sleep. Let's just get back."

He was surprised when Lucy nodded. "I agree."

Natsu was relieved. "Great. Come on, push the controls back."

" _You_ stay here," Lucy said, obviously not listening to him. "And _I'll_ go up."

"What? Luce, are you mental? I'm not letting you—"

He was cut off when she jabbed a finger in his chest, her brown eyes fierce. "Trust me and I'll trust you."

"That doesn't make sense, Lucy!"

But just like she'd refused to listen to him when she threw eggs at their old Calculus teacher's house, she didn't listen to him now. She sauntered over to the slow-moving Ferris and jumped onto the cart closest to her. She almost tumbled out, because it was still in motion, but she held onto the bars and kept her place.

If the night could have gotten any wilder, it was now. Unsure of whether to be the hero and go after her or to try and figure out with lever would stop this ride, Natsu stood and stared at her, mouth wide open.

"Luce!"

Lucy was laughing. She was not even sitting properly; Natsu thought he might get a heart attack just by looking at her. What if the ride malfunctioned, like a million times before? What if there was security around? What if—

"Natsu!" Lucy yelled down his name so loud, that he jumped a bit. "Yeah?" Because there wasn't really an appropriate way to react when the girl you were in love with dragged you to an amusement park in the middle of the night, started up the Ferris all by herself and hopped onto it.

"When I tell you to," Lucy called down, and now she was disappearing from sight as her cart went higher and higher. Her voice was almost lost in the strong wind and creaking of the mechanism of the wheel. "Pull back the lever on the extreme right!"

Natsu tried to calm himself down and rushed to the control booth. He saw the right lever, the one Lucy had pushed last and nodded frantically before realizing she couldn't see him.

But he looked up and saw a bit of blonde hair against the dark night sky, heard a bit of Lucy's laughter, and almost grinned despite himself. He wanted to laugh with her, but out of sheer disbelief.

"NOW!"

He reached out and pulled the lever with all his might, nervous that he wouldn't do it right, but he heard the distinct creak of the wheel stopping. He ran back outside, and could barely make out a small figure on the top of the Ferris.

His heart caught in his throat and he couldn't shout out a warning as he realized Lucy was standing up by balancing on her cart. Her coat flapped around her knees, baring her dress inside.

That was it. Natsu down there and Lucy up there and a few amber lights in between.

He'd never been more scared. And had never fallen in love with Lucy Heartfilia more.

He heard her let out a loud, exhilarated laugh. "Oh my God!" she shouted. "Natsu, you have no idea how beautiful Magnolia is up from here! Oh!"

Natsu just stood there, confused and fascinated. "Lucy, please sit back down," he called up finally. "You can enjoy the view as much as you want. Just please sit down."

She probably looked down at him. It was difficult to see. "Why?" she demanded.

Natsu sighed. "I'll stand her pulling levers all night long," he promised. "Just please—"

"Let's talk about the universe!" Lucy interrupted. "Or each other!"

"Lucy, I have no idea what you want to—"

"What's your favourite colour?" She seemed to revel in cutting across his words. "Mine's pink!"

Pink? He'd always seen her as a silver and dark blue kind of girl. "Well, mine's yellow!" He called up. "This conversation is ridiculous!"

He heard her giggling and shook his head. He was exhausted and worried, but he'd never felt more alive. And he wasn't even the one up on the Ferris Wheel.

There was a heartbeat's silence between them, as Lucy watched him and he watched her. She was still standing, and now she shed her coat with one hand and let it drop below. It draped over one the spokes on the wheel below.

Waiting for her to speak first, for her to lead him like always, Natsu kept quiet. He simply looked at her like she'd disappear if he blinked. And he felt his horror growing as Lucy now perched herself precariously over her cart.

"Hey Natsu!" she called.

He eyed her warily. "Yes, Lucy?"

She smiled and tilted her face up to the night sky. The wind whipped her blonde hair. "Catch me."

And she fell.

It was too quick for Natsu to grasp what happened. All he knew that one moment he saw Lucy leap off her cart and freefalling towards him, and the next he had her laughing and breathless in her arms.

He was gasping, but she was giggling loudly into his chest.

And then he instinctively pulled her closer and held onto her tightly, instead of letting her back on the ground like he knew he should. After all, this was another one of Lucy Heartfilia's brilliant life experiences he was witnessing and helping along, right?

But he didn't care. He was drawn to her smell and her voice and her laugh and he was scared to let go.

"You. Perfect. Idiot." He whispered against her hair. "You could've killed yourself."

"But you were there," Lucy said in a matter of fact tone. She looked up at him, not really fighting to get out of his death grip. "I told you I'd trust you."

"No," Natsu groaned. " _You'll_ kill me."

"You called me _Luce_ ," Lucy said out of the blue. "Call me that again, will you?"

Raising his eyebrows, he said it again. "Luce. Lucy. Does it matter?"

Her lips lifted up infinitesimally. "You're the only one who calls me that."

"Am I?" But inside, Natsu felt a sudden warmth spread through his heart.

"Was this as fun for you as it was for me?"

Natsu glared down at her, but felt it falter when he looked at her for too long. "What do you think?"

Lucy smiled the prettiest smile Natsu had ever seen and he felt himself weaken at the knees. The fact that she was in _that_ dress didn't help. "I think," she said. "That you want to kiss me."

Was it really that obvious? Or did Lucy want to do it too?

But he did, he really did, and there was Lucy Heartfilia standing right there in front him, one who didn't _mind_ him wanting to kiss her. Natsu struggled with himself, knowing that it would just make things more painful when Lucy was home and woke up the next morning regretting all of this.

She solved his dilemma for him by sighing and leaning forward, close enough for him to count her eyelashes. "Or I could do it," she muttered.

And then she was kissing him. Natsu felt his eyes fall shut and gave in to the warm, electric feeling running through his whole body. His hands were around Lucy's waist and hers were running through his hair, her nails lightly brushing his scalp. He kissed back like he'd never kissed before, inhaling Lucy's perfume in and silently thanking the stars that he let her up on that ride.

Maybe it was a few minutes, or a few hours or several days, but when Lucy broke away and stepped back, he felt like she'd pulled away too quickly.

"Lucy, I—"

"I love you too," Lucy said simply. Her cheeks were flushed with colour. She looked unlike herself. "And when I get back home this morning, I'm going to call and tell Mirajane Strauss that she was wrong."

Very much taken aback, Natsu threw her a confused look. His lips still burnt from their kiss. "About what?"

Lucy grinned. "I snuck out of the party because they were playing Seven Minutes in Heaven and I _refused_ to be stuck in a cabinet with her brother." She shrugged. "She told me that I had to get over you and that you wouldn't really stick around for me. So all it took was a drink and my usual need to prove everyone else wrong to come get you." She looked up at the still-lit wheel. "And I always wanted to do that," she sighed happily. "I just never found the right person to catch me when I jumped."

All of it made sense to him now. But only three words really registered in his just-kissed-by-Lucy-Heartfilia state of mind. "Get over me?" he echoed.

Lucy looked at Natsu a tad impatiently. "All those years I let you in on my grand pranks," she said. "And you never realized?"

The joy of it was overwhelming. Wave after wave of pleasant disbelief washed over him. " _No!_ " And he was half-yelling. "No, I—Lucy, _I've_ been in love with you since the day you tossed me a football in the rain! Haven't _you_ ever noticed?"

Lucy looked almost as surprised as he felt. "I always figured you thought me a bit messed up, but I thought if we were friends, I could work up to—"

This time _Natsu_ interrupted _her_. More sure of what he was going to do than he'd ever been around her, he walked the two steps to close the gap between them and pressed his mouth to hers.

He pulled away after a second, but didn't let her go. "I love messed up people," He whispered to her, and she let out a breathless laugh. "And as it turns out, you're my favourite."

They just stood there, each lost in our own thoughts, but thoughts about each other. Natsu felt certain of that. His chest suddenly felt lighter, and everything seemed a bit silly to him now. All his worry and all his musing about Lucy Heartfilia.

And then they heard the distinct sound of the gates crashing open and the shouts of three or four men. "Oi! Who's the moron who decided to break in, huh?"

Lucy looked at Natsu, grinning nervously. "Um…"

"Stupid teenagers!" Another man yelled, and the second Natsu caught sight of the guards brandishing flashlights and metal detectors coming at him, _he_ took the lead. Without bothering to fix the lights from the control booth, he grabbed Lucy's hand and the two of them dashed past the rides and through the darkness, trying not to burst out laughing despite their rather critical situation.

They skidded to a halt at the opposite end of the gates. Natsu quickly lifted her up, averting her eyes carefully as she clambered over the gates in her dress and no coat to cover her this time. She dropped to the other side just as Natsu swung over and climbed down.

They ran all the way back to their neighbourhood, not even stopping to catch their breath. Finally, when they reached Lucy's lawn, they paused and collapsed to the ground. Natsu was in fits of laughter, and Lucy had her face buried in the grass in silent mirth.

It was five minutes before Natsu spoke. "Well, they may never find us, but they'll be pretty confused to find a random coat on the Ferris Wheel."

Lucy tried to stop her panting breaths as she spoke. "All these years I've broken into our school," she said, and Natsu wasn't sure whether to be impressed or disapproving. "And not once have I been caught."

"Must be me," he teased. Lucy winked at him. The same wink she'd given him on the school football stadium a millennium ago.

"Then screw breaking in," she said and Natsu felt a rush of affection run through him. Lucy dug out her phone from where she'd kept it wedged in her boots and checked the time.

"It's three in the morning," she remarked. She didn't look sleepy at all.

"I guess we should get back," Natsu said reluctantly.

They got up, brushing off dirt and grass, and then Lucy suddenly moved forward and hugged him very quickly. "I'll see you tomorrow," she said.

He grimaced. "And next week?"

Lucy smiled. "We'll figure something out."

"I'll trust you on that."

A half hour later Natsu had changed into sweatpants and was lying on his bed again. Only this time, he already had his phone in hand and knew exactly what to write back to the seventeenth text from Lucy Heartfilia that night.

* * *

 **And that's a wrap! I sincerely apologize for any mistakes, I tried proofreading as much as I could at half past midnight here :P**

 **The idea came to me suddenly, while I was being a couch potato, and I've been so obsessed with writing this one-shot that I've been working on it for the last four hours. Please do review and tell me your thoughts on it! That will really be very encouraging :)**

 **Thanks for reading!**


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